In hospitals, clinics and other environments in which ill patients are routinely examined and treated, medical practitioners contaminate a host of devices such as needles, syringes, tubing and scalpels with blood and other bodily fluids. This is often done when feeding patients, drawing bloods, vaccinating and otherwise inoculating patients against various diseases. Quite often, patients' bodily fluids are infected with pathogenic bacteria, viruses, fungi and other matter. The potential source of pathogenicity has been acute with the knowledge and identification of certain pathogens such as hepatitis B and the AIDS virus, among other deadly and infectious materials.
These pathogenetic materials are potentially a source of infection for doctors, nurses, aids, orderlies, technicians and even to visitors to the hospital or clinic, as well as to the patients themselves. The various devices infected must thus be contained and/or destroyed.
Currently, infectious waste, called "sharps", is generally disposed of by insertion of the infected material into a passive hard plastic container. These containers are then removed by housekeeping personnel and sent to a site for bagging and storage. After bagging, the containers are often stored or removed to yet another site for sterilization. Even when closed, locked and bagged, the containers are not airtight, and thus can potentially spill and contaminate the atmosphere. Handling of the waste containers often results in infected needles penetrating storage containers, thus providing a potentially dangerous condition for housekeeping personnel.
Following sterilization, the contaminated material is often removed to another location for incineration, storage or disposal in a landfill. Thereafter, the waste disposal containers resemble, and are often referred to, as "porcupines" because the often used plastic containers shrink around the needles and other devices when heated in an autoclave or similar device, resulting in needle exposure through the sidewalls of the containers. In this condition, the containers are indeed quite dangerous to handle, whether or not they remain the housing for infectious devices.
In addition to the above recited difficulties, current state of the art disposal techniques are further flawed in the use of so-called "anti-removal" or "anti-theft" containers. Infectious devices are often put into plastic containers which contain guards for preventing needle retrieval. However, it is relatively easy to reach into such containers and retrieve the "sharps". As such, current disposal methods do not render the needles and sharps irretrievable and unstable at the point of disposal.
One of the most serious deficiencies with current disposal methods is that they do not prevent the aerosoling or spilling of infectious materials into the ambient atmosphere, thus potentially causing the spread of infectious germs, bacteria, fungi and viral fragments. Current containers are not air-tight, even when they are eventually closed and locked. As such, there remains outstanding potential for cross infection by vectors such as flies, rodents, etc., and "odor" is a big problem.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a superior means for containing potential infectious devices which overcomes the difficulties recited above.
This and further objects of the present invention will be more fully appreciated when considering the following disclosure.